Most surprisingly, I was treated to different side-story events to view, with some introducing characters and locations that my first playthrough did not even touch on. In fact, the entire tonality of the demo's second chapter immediately felt different. On top of that, I had a different character join my ranks with a unique backstory all of his own. The battle took place in a different location, with a different objective and a different context. You see, depending on the choice made between the two chapters, I found myself on a significantly divergent story thread in the second half of my second time through the demo. On my first time through, I made the choice that I felt was appropriate - to defend the prince with my life, of course. However, I found myself feeling significantly more impressed once I played through a second time and deliberately making the other choice presented to the player: to give up the prince and play for the long game, having bargained for safety. To set the stage a bit: the demo consists of the aforementioned two chapters, a major decision made between them regarding sheltering the young Prince Roland, and some side story events to view as well. While this means that some of the story's context is admittedly foggy and some of the framework has to be gleaned, I think it does do a solid job of establishing the major players, identifying the setting, and giving a nice glimpse into the wider conflict at play. Pulled from the middle of the game, specifically Chapters VI and VII, the demo here really does feel like a vertical slice of the final product. Project Triangle Strategy's demo is worth playing twice, it really is. Here are four things I found myself loving after my time with the demo, alongside two I hope are tweaked before release next year. However, after two playthroughs of the new demo, I find myself pretty damned optimistic that perhaps there is some significant merit to it here.
However, several RPGs come out of the gate shouting about their supposed focus on 'Choices and Consequences', enough so that I find myself slightly sneering at the banality of the phrase.
This immediately springs to mind the likes of Tactics Ogre, a similar isometric strategy game of which non-linear narrative progressive is a hallmark.
A new strategy RPG in the HD-2D vein of Octopath Traveler is something I never knew I wanted until, well, last week.ĭuring the announcement of Project Triangle Strategy - a title which I enjoy typing out again due to how ludicrously clumsy it is - a large focus of the presentation was given to divergent narrative branches through the 'Scales of Conviction' mechanic. Strategy RPGs have always been one of my favorite genres of video games, with Fire Emblem titles typically topping my lists of favorite games for any given year (see my personal 2019 list, for instance). When Project Triangle Strategy was announced with a playable demo during last week's Nintendo Direct, my interest was immediately piqued.